Opposing Mandatory Minimums (Kettle Falls Five)

Every year, the federal government spends more than $50 billion on its War on Drugs, which overwhelmingly targets the poor and minorities, contributing to the highest incarceration rate in world history.

Our Clients, The Kettle Falls Five

Equal Justice Under Law represents a family — known in the media as the Kettle Falls Five — prosecuted by the federal government for growing medical marijuana. The group includes a family — a mom, her husband, her adult son, and the son’s wife — along with a family friend who signed an eleventh-hour plea deal with the government in exchange for offering testimony against the family. Every member of the family is indigent, none has any criminal history, and two members of the family (including Equal Justice Under Law’s clients) are native members of the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe. Sadly, the father — a 71-year old man — passed away last year from cancer.

All five co-defendants possessed valid medical licenses to grow marijuana. Even though all family members had state-sanctioned medical authorizations in Washington State, the federal government sought mandatory minimum sentences of ten years to life.

Leading the Defense

Equal Justice Under Law led the defense team during the trial, which took place at the federal courthouse in Spokane from February 25 through March 3, 2015. After less than one day of deliberation, the jury the acquitted the defendants on 4 out of 5 counts. The jury delivered “not guilty” verdicts on all of the most serious counts, including Conspiracy to Violate Drug Trafficking Laws, Distribution of Marijuana, Use of Firearms in Furtherance of Drug Trafficking, and Maintaining a Drug-Involved Premise. The jury also rejected the federal government’s charge of Manufacturing 100 or More Marijuana Plants — which would have carried a five-year mandatory minimum sentence — and only convicted the defendants of the lesser-included charge of Manufacturing Less than 100 Marijuana Plants — which carries no minimum sentence.

Equal Justice Under Law continues to defend that sole remaining lesser-included offense on appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

This landmark prosecution will have significant ramifications for the scope of the War on Drugs and has the potential to set important constitutional limits on the government’s efforts to imprison people without compelling justification.

DOJ Agrees with Defense

October 16, 2017: the Department of Justice filed a brief confirming that the family in the so-called was in strict compliance with state law. Therefore, the DOJ has also confirmed that they were not authorized to spend money on the prosecution of the defendants because, starting in December 2014, Congress denied funding for such prosecutions in states where medical marijuana is lawful.

January 3, 2017: The federal district court in Spokane vacated the convictions of our clients and dismissed the charges. The courts action is the end of more than five years of unjustified prosecution against this family, whose only ‘crime’ was treating their own medical conditions in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. Read the dismissal here: Dismissal, Jan 3, 2018